Luka Khatelishvili finishes 7th place at Cadet World Championships

Friday August 11th, 2017

Luka Khatelishvili’s Seventh-Place Finish Best of the Day for Canada

Montreal, August 11, 2017 – Luka Khatelishvili took Canada’s top spot on Friday at the Cadet World Championships in Santiago, Chile. With a total of two wins and two losses, he finished in seventh place in the U81 kg category.

Uzbekistan’s Muzaffarbek Turoboyev ousted the Canadian in the first round of the repechage by scoring an ippon. Earlier in the day, Khatelishvili had been knocked out of the race for gold in the last round of the preliminaries by Moldova’s Eugen Matveiciuc.

“Luka had a good day. He lost against some tough opponents. Matveiciuc ended up winning the world championship in that category today,” stated coach Jean-Pierre Cantin.

Khatelishvili began his day with two victories, an easy one over Aruba’s Yuri Koffy and a more difficult one over France’s Serge Villeneuve Daville.

“Luka had no trouble winning his first match but the second one was much more challenging. He fell behind at the beginning of the bout but managed to tie it up right at the end of regulation time. During golden score, he used the momentum he had built to score the winning point,” explained Cantin.

In other U81 kg action, Alexandre Arencibia was eliminated in his very first match of the day by Germany’s Johann Lenz, who secured the win by waza-ari.

Sava Antic (U73 kg) also saw his day come to an end after his first appearance on the mats. He lost by ippon to Italy’s Kenny Komi Bedel.

On the women’s side, none of the Canadians made it past the preliminary rounds. Rachel Krapman (U57 kg) had an early victory by ippon over Chile’s Yeamilet Astudillo but was soon shown the door by Italy’s Giovanna Fusco.

In the U63 kg group, both Sierra Tanner and Alicia Fiandor were eliminated during their first bouts. Tanner lost by waza-ari to Luxembourg’s Klara Mosr while Fiandor was caught off guard by Taiwan’s Yuan Pei Chum, who won by ippon.

The Cadet World Championships will continue on Saturday in Santiago, Chile.